This is an online journal of our education journey. We like to read living books, do lapbooks, projects, and unit studies. We go on educational trips and get together with other families for different clubs.

Thursday, 10 March 2011

Wow! Another Week Just Flew Past!

This week has been incredibly busy in our circles. Monday L had her radio show with two others ( T and R) and then R came here after the show. We had to pick M up from my friend M who was kind enough to have her there while the radio show was on and had coffee and a chat with her. M has two boys and her two boys are 13 months younger than my two and are exactly the same age difference to my two. This is for very different reasons but as I have said the end result is the same. We have 7.5 year age gaps between our children.

When we were on our way to dropping M of at M's place, another friend of mine who has 2 little ones texted me to invite us around for coffee and so I collected M from M's and then went on to visit S, F and G. G is simply gorgeous, he's five months old and always full of smiles for me :-)

F is the same age as M and her room is M's version of heaven, a doll house, princess costumes and more. So I didn't see M hardly at all when we were there and I had a hard time getting her to leave so I could go and pick up DH also known as The Big Guy. She also didn't want to leave M's place because she had fun playing with J, M's three year old son. She has changed so much from the child who would want to go home five minutes after we arrived somewhere.

So I was late picking The Big Guy up from work and he must have been watching out for me because I wasn't even finished parking and he was coming out the door.

R stayed over and then we had two visitors on Tuesday and they spent the afternoon with us and it was fun.

Wednesday we went swimming because I organise a home educator/home schooler swimming session at a local pool and there were 8 of us there that day. After swimming everyone came back to my place and I fed them all lunch!

Yesterday L worked on her history project or should I say presentation? Yes, L worked on her presentation and finished it. Her group was working on the Stuarts and her topic was Movers and Shakers and Caffeine. So she wrote a sketch with some famous historical characters having a meeting in a coffee house (that's the caffeine bit).

She was confused as to how to do her project, so with minimal input from me (that's always best) she got on with it. Then I looked it over before I sent it to the others because they need to have their parts for the sketch so that they are familiar with it before the day. I ended up having to put a bit more input into it than I originally wanted to and I don't like doing that but I felt that there were just a couple of more things that she needed to add to it and so she did and then we sent it to her group members.

Today is Thursday. I'm tired from the socialising that we did this week but next week is already fully booked. She has book group, history group, if we can make it Adventure Playground, then two visitors on Thursday for the whole day and then Friday is Drama. I'm tired just thinking about all of that.

Last night I caught some television. I started flicking through the channels and stumbled upon the religious section of channels. I saw 700 club. I haven't seen 700 Club in YEARS! So I started to watch and wow has Pat ever aged! Then I thought about it and realised it's been nearly 20 years since I last saw it. 700 Club is a news programme and then Pat talks about how what is doing on in the world was prophesied and is a sign of the Second Coming.

Then I got curious and started looking at the other channels in that section, I saw Benny Hinn and Peter Popoff and then I saw another show called Jewish Voices (I fully expected something completely different to what it actually was). The thing that struck me was that they were all like those infomercials or shopping channel programmes. They were selling religion and miracles. In the case of Jewish Voices, they were asking for donations to help the Jews in Ethiopia and then were doing like PBS does in its membership drives, they were giving you a gift if you sent a certain amount of money.

Obviously I didn't last very long watching those shows, I couldn't stand it. I mean I don't need to buy something in order for a miracle to happen in my life. I don't need a gift to donate to a worthy cause and I can't stand the mentality of those shows. Yes I understand that Benny Hinn and Peter Popoff are empires and they have to fund their businesses, but the way they go about it is too over the top for me and it always was, even when I lived on the same side of the ocean as them!

I expect I should explain what I thought Jewish Voices was, I thought it was going to be something a bit more instructional perhaps. But then I remembered that the Jewish people are not supposed to prosthelytize which means that they aren't supposed to be actively recruiting people or converting the masses. In fact, I have heard that if someone wants to convert to Judaism, the Rabbi is supposed to turn him or her away three times. If the person comes back a fourth time, then the Rabbi sees that they genuinely want to convert and then will help them. It is a lengthy process to convert to Judaism and I know someone who went through it. Some Rabbis will do the turning away and others don't anymore.

I've spent a lot of time studying religion and really find it interesting. I used to practise the Jewish Sabbath rituals at home (special meal, blessings, candles, wine - well I used grape juice but...), despite the fact that I'm not Jewish. It really was a nice way to start and end the week. I did mine on Saturday to Sunday rather than from Friday to Saturday. I even had the challah bread that I would take each week. Now the only thing I do observe is Hanukkah because that is the easiest for me to fit in. Years ago L and I painted a menorah and that is what we use each year.

Well I must dash because George is calling me, well, his book is, you might know it, it's called Animal Farm. That's right, George Orwell is calling me.

I think a Math book and a French book are also calling me I promise I'm not really hearing voices from the books, I mean after all, books don't really talk, do they?